


The Crux of the Problem

by Roccolinde



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: post 8x04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 18:53:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18784126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roccolinde/pseuds/Roccolinde
Summary: There are several problems with Brienne of Tarth.[AKA yet another 8x04 ficlet because why the hell not?]





	The Crux of the Problem

**Author's Note:**

> Did I accidentally end up super invested in these absolute knobheads despite my best intentions? Yep. And the people to blame for this know what they did, and probably aren't even sorry. But I ficced, and now I can pretend like I'm not going to do this at LEAST three more times because I am easily distracted by shiny things.

The problem with Brienne of Tarth, Jaime muses, is that she is so appallingly _good_ , the sort of good that exists in songs and tales and never truly in the real world. She is everything he had once imagined a knight could be, an image found only in children's imaginations—just, strong, fair. Kind. But she is undeniably real, built of flesh and bone and nobility, of her weight against his back in a fight, of the sweet strength in her touch. It really was damned inconvenient.

The second, more pressing, problem with Brienne of Tarth, is that she makes other people that way too. Spend a few weeks in her presence and you start promising jewels to bastards and lose a hand, or ride back into what might very well be certain death just to jump into a bear pit. Keep oaths you'd never meant to make, remember how sincerely you once took them. Ride north to face the Night King's army, aware that you might not live long enough to do it. Honestly, the list of things he's done since meeting her—true things, _good_ things—is horrifically long.

The third, most pressing, problem with Brienne of Tarth is that she is asleep in her bed and he wants nothing more than to crawl in beside her, bury his nose in the crook of her neck, and ward off the northern chill. Tell her in the morning that he must ride to King's Landing, must face his sister; there is no doubt in his mind that she will understand.

The real problem, though, is that Jaime knows how that story would go. A ballad of love and atonement, and death at the end. But Jaime Lannister is not a knight from the tales, no matter how good she has reminded him to be, and he has no intention of dying. And if that means slipping from her quarters in the dead of night, in breaking her heart as she stands in that courtyard... well, it is a small price to pay for hope of a happier ending.

Jaime Lannister might not be a good man, but he wants the chance to try.


End file.
